


fusion was the broken heart that's lonely's only thought

by harpers_mirror (SapphireBryony)



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Darkest Timeline, F/M, multiple character deaths, passing reference to sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 12:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16618685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphireBryony/pseuds/harpers_mirror
Summary: "I’m sorry we’re going to die out here. I’m sorry I couldn’t save us.”(In a different universe, it didn't happen this way.)





	fusion was the broken heart that's lonely's only thought

**Author's Note:**

> Title and inspiration from Josh Ritter's _The Temptation of Adam._

In a different universe, it didn’t play out like this. She rescued you and she was badass and awesome and saved your life for the umpteenth time and then things kind of sucked but they got better, mostly because you had each other.

In this one, she shot Hilbert dead where he stood.

You see the regret, the horror, the _“oh god, what did I do?”_ flash into her eyes the second after she fires, and your heart breaks for her but you totally support her decision.

After all, you’re still breathing, aren’t you?

(Those words will come back to haunt you later.)

She drops the gun and it floats away, looking innocuous and ordinary and not at all like an item that could change the course of history for everyone in this room.

For a moment, everything is silent. Hilbert is silent because he is gone. Hera is silent because she is gone too. Renee is silent because the finality, the _totality_ of what she has done is currently crashing over her. She clasps her hands over her mouth like she’s holding in a scream.

You are silent because for once in your noisy, chaotic, oh-god-just-shut-up-already-Doug life, you can think of nothing to say.

The silence weighs down on you all like a physical thing.

You are suddenly reminded of the giant hands in the Monty Python sketches that would reach down from the heavens and poke people, or squash them flat. You smother a hysterical laugh that threatens to burst the silence like an overburdened dam.

Renee locks eyes with you and it hits you like a jolt of electricity. She’s so pale the freckles stand out starkly on her cheeks. Her hands drop from her mouth to hang limply at her sides.

“I - ” she croaks. She stops, clears her throat. “I don’t - ” She stops again. Looking like she’s going to be sick, she turns away from you.

You make yourself move, make yourself place your hand on her shoulder.  The two of you hang there, frozen like that, for a long moment before she pushes off the nearest bulkhead and flees the room without a backwards glance.

You don’t see her for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

In a different universe, the first blaring alarm brought her running to the bridge to save the day. This kickstarted a long, exhausting, delirious few days of putting out fires and too little sleep and too much time together and some truly awful decision-making. It was also the closest you two had ever been and the best you’d ever worked together.

And regardless of what she tried to claim later, “Name That Disaster!” was a good game, one that you rocked at.

In this one, the alarm jars you awake and you put out the entirely-too-literal fire alone. Hera is still gone, and the shell left behind is barely keeping up with the constant torrent of minor daily emergencies.

Situation stabilized for the moment, you go looking and find her in the observation deck, floating on her back and staring out through the skylights.

You maneuver in next to her and try to dismiss the inane question - _“Do you still call it a skylight if it doesn’t show either the sky or light? Just space and dark?”_ \- that drifts across your brain as you do so.

“Hey,” you venture.

She doesn’t move, doesn’t look at you, but you hear a sigh.

“Engine room three just caught on fire,” you offer. “It’s probably gonna keep happening if we can’t - uh, if we don’t do something.”

“Probably,” she agrees.

“Commander?” you ask.

“Yeah, Eiffel?”

“What are we gonna do?” you ask, hating that you can’t keep the quivering fear from invading your words.

Finally, she looks at you. She drifts upright, looks away, sighs again.

“I don’t know, Doug,” she answers, and the sadness in her voice falls right into the pit in your stomach. “I really don’t. Probably not enough.”

You push upright too. “Well,” you say, aiming for ‘encouraging’ and missing by a mile. “It’ll be the best we can.”

Renee finally meets your eyes. Her expression is bleak and hopeless and you want to hug her so, what the hell, you do.

What’s she going to do, shoot you?

She’s startled and stiff and more than a little uncomfortable but if you’re being totally honest, you needed this at least as much as you needed to make her feel better so you hang onto her for a minute, face pressed against her neck.

You feel her arms wrap tentatively around you in return before she pulls away. You let her go and look at her. She still looks awful but she shoots a small smile your way.

You open your mouth to say god only knows what but another blaring alarm cuts off your words.

Moving as one, you both head for the hatch.

 

* * *

 

In a different universe, things really start to look up before they fall apart again. You get Hera back, life stops requiring emergency attention every five minutes, and the crack team of Minkowski and Eiffel is cemented. And then Isabel Lovelace comes crashing into your lives, all big talk and bigger explosives.

In this one, you are alone together. Neither of you have the requisite knowledge to repair the damage done to Hera and even if you did, the sleep deprivation is taking its toll. You and Renee can hardly string coherent sentences together, let alone repair sophisticated AI systems.

In this one, Lovelace never comes. The entities that made her recognize your current state for the terminal condition it is and sent her elsewhere.

But that’s a different story.

Here you are alone. You’ve divided the station into spheres of responsibility, managing what you each can without assistance to allow the other to sleep. Days and weeks blur together and time loses all meaning.

You don’t talk much and she talks even less. Neither of you seem to have much to say. You try to muster a smile for her each time you cross paths in the vain hope that you might see one back but her smile is long gone.

After thirty hours awake, on the day a fire in engineering takes out two of the engines and damages two more, you awake some unknown amount of time later to the sound of Renee entering your room. Through a haze of sleep, you sense her hovering next to your makeshift bed.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

You turn toward her, half-awake and worried. “For what?” you whisper back. You’re not sure why you bother whispering - you’re both awake, after all - but it feels right and also you’re really very exhausted so maybe some things make a different kind of sense than they normally might.

You can tell she didn’t think you’d wake up because she looks embarrassed and startled. Then her shoulders droop and she replies, also in a whisper which amuses you on some distant level.

“I’m sorry we’re going to die out here. I’m sorry I couldn’t save us.”

Your chest feels tight.

“It’s okay,” you reply. “Honestly, you did everything you could. My luck on you saving my life had to run out eventually. And really, compared to some of the ways I could have died, ‘alongside a badass space pilot in space’ is way cooler than I deserve.”

She laughs at that, a strangled half-sob of surprise and amusement. The sob wins out though and she starts to shake with silent tears. You reach out and catch her arm and pull her towards you and shed your own tears against her hair as you cling to each other in the darkness.

When the kiss happens, you’re honestly not sure which of you initiated it.

You’re pretty sure you met in the middle.

 

* * *

 

In a different universe you find out about her husband, even if it takes her a weirdly long time to bring it up. Eventually, you pry some details out of her and swear you’re going to have to meet the guy when you all make it home.

In this one, she breathes the name “Dominik” against your cheek in the dark as she comes. You don’t ask.

 

* * *

 

In a different universe, when the hacking coughs come thick and fast and the whole world turns to blood and pain and shouting, it’s Renee’s determination and Isabel’s magic blood and Hilbert’s unsought redemption arc that saves you.

One out of three ain’t bad, but determination is no substitute for medical and alien intervention and you hate that this is how it ends, that you can’t draw breath to say goodbye or I love you or even to make one last stupid Star Wars reference that she wouldn’t get.

But mostly you hate that you die knowing you’re leaving her all alone.

 

* * *

 

In a different universe, it hurts and it’s awful but you can feel her hand in yours and you know it’s going to be okay. You wake up to see her smile at you in relief and joy.

In this one...

you don’t.


End file.
